Reply To: Hobbyist … start charging?

[Loke]

Honestly, people with all sorts of experience start photography businesses on the side…but full-time? I’d keep my day job unless you make a name for yourself and get more business than you can handle. Here’s the thing it’s not so much that the photographer isn’t “up to par’ whatever that means—photography is subjective–so-called “experienced” photographers forget that it’s  80% business 20% photography— if you are an arrogant jerk — who cares if your stuff has been on Time Magazine if your clients can’t work with you? It’s still about customer service mostly. Chances are if someone contacts you it’s because they like your work otherwise they’d just mozy on through. Why so many photogs get upset is because people who are just starting out charge dirt cheap prices—and you’ll see that the expectation of that is evident if you go to a site like craigslist.  Charge what you’re worth.  How do you do that? This is based on the amount of experience you have, be it education or other skills you can add to the mix ..it’s how much you’ve spend on your equipment or plan to spend on your equipment, plus a myriad of other things like: insurance (personal and equipment), gas, internet, memberships, rent/mortgage…etc…

1. go to something like salary.com and get an idea of what a photog of your experience level makes or look at other photog’s prices –call around. Be competitive but don’t undersell yourself.

2. Use a calculator like this and run the numbers: http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/calculator.cfm

 

Good Luck!